The doctor spent his last bit of money on a plane ticket to China. Along the way, he hitchhiked and learned Chinese, finally managing to make his way into Tibet.
He suffered untold hardships on the road—altitude sickness, price gouging, and something close to the eighty-one trials of legend—before finally reaching a small mountain village in the Himalaya Mountains called Huaxi Village.
This was a marketplace for magical goods. Many sorcerers moved through its bustling streets, looking nothing like the image the doctor had once imagined.
They were not the sort of witches who wore pointed hats and flew around on brooms. They spoke and acted no differently from ordinary people, yet they would casually cast little spells, displaying incredible light or other forms of energy.
He asked several people. No one was willing to treat his hands, but he did learn where the mountain gate of Kamar-Taj was. He heard that the sanctuary opened its gates every few days to trade with everyone.
So, to demonstrate his sincerity, he knelt outside the gate and waited.
At one point, a nearly naked weirdo in leather pants opened the door and glanced at him. Before he could say anything, the man ducked back inside, leaving Strange with a long wait ahead.
The sun set, but the town below the mountain remained lively, every shop lit up with bright lamps.
Some were lanterns, some were neon signs. Modern and classical styles seemed to blend together, interspersed with magical lights that flickered on from time to time. The scene was dreamlike.
Many people passed behind Strange in the shadows cast by the dazzling lights. More or less, they showed confusion as they looked over this beggar-like fellow.
Yet no one knew what he was thinking.
If they had circled around to look at